page_title: Fort Concho
section_title: Base of the 4th Cavalry
hierarchical_section_title: Fort Concho / Operation by the US military / Base of the 4th Cavalry
caption_attribution_description: The plaque at fort concho describing its history.
context_page_description: Fort Concho is a former United States Army installation located in San Angelo, Texas. It was established in November 1867 at the confluence of the Concho Rivers and on the Butterfield Overland Mail Route and Goodnight–Loving Trail. At its height during the American Indian Wars, Fort Concho consisted of 40 buildings on 40 acres of land leased by the US Army. The fort was abandoned in June 1889 and fell into civilian hands. Over the next twenty years, its buildings were used as residences or recycled for their material in the nearby town of San Angelo. Beginning in the late 1920s, a serious effort has been made to preserve and restore Fort Concho by its eponymous museum organization, founded in 1929. The property has been owned and operated by the city of San Angelo since 1935. It was named a National Historic Landmark on 4 July 1961. Fort Concho is one of the best-preserved examples of the military installations built by the US Army in the state of Texas.
  Over its 22-year career as a US Army base, Fort Concho housed elements of fifteen US Cavalry and Infantry regiments, most prominently the "Buffalo Soldiers" of the 9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry regiments.
context_section_description: The first act undertaken by the 4th Cavalry when establishing Fort Concho was to build a wagon road to the San Saba River to secure a supply route from Fort Mason. When not on construction details, the garrison patrolled, scouted, and escorted wagon trains on the Butterfield Overland Trail and San Antonio–El Paso Road and cattle herds. Encounters with hostile Native Americans were rare.
  On 25 February 1871, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie took command of the 4th Cavalry. He moved the regimental headquarters to Fort Richardson a month later, but kept a few companies at Fort Concho. In May 1871, the 4th Cavalry contingent left at Fort Concho participated in a campaign against the Kiowa in retaliation for the Warren Wagon Train raid with troops from Forts Griffin and Sill. Six troops of 4th Cavalry's I Company, commanded by Captain Napoleon B. McLaughlen, joined the rest of the regiment at the Little Wichita River in pursuit of the Kiowa but turned back for Fort Concho in September after the raiders escaped. Comanche and Kiowa raids increased in number over early 1873, prompting a number of expeditions that rarely saw Native Americans. A notable exception was a patrol carried out by Sergeant William Wilson from 26 to 29 March 1872. On 28 March, his patrol fought a group of Comancheros, half-Native and Hispanic traders, and captured one of their number. The captured man, Apalonio Ortiz, revealed that there was water in the Staked Plains and the location of a large Comanche settlement and base of trade for the Comancheros at Mushaway Peak. Hatch, in charge of Fort Concho while Mackenzie was in the field, reported Wilson's findings to Mackenzie and to the Departments of Texas and New Mexico. McLaughlen set out again with two companies of the 4th Cavalry and one of the 11th Infantry to verify Ortiz's information and confirmed it. His expedition, which had also mapped some of the Staked Plains, returned on 13 May.
  After Mackenzie and Hatch met with General Christopher C. Augur, Commander of the Department of Texas, Mackenzie and McLaughlen, commanding Companies D and I, departed from their respective installations on 17 June. Over the following months, the 4th Cavalry explored the South Plains and fought the Comanche at the Battle of the North Fork of the Red River on 29 September. As a result of the battle, the 4th Cavalry captured 124 women and children and most of the horses of the involved Comanche warriors. The following night, the Comanche stole back some of their horses and escaped, but left their women and children as prisoners. Companies D and I returned to Fort Concho on 21 October with 116 of the noncombatants, who were interned in the quartermaster's corral. They remained in captivity at the fort until the Department of Texas ordered the release of the Comanche hostages on 14 April 1873. They departed Fort Concho on 24 May under escort from the 11th Infantry and arrived safely at Fort Sill on 10 June.
  In March 1873, Mackenzie moved the 4th Cavalry's command from Fort Concho to Fort Clark. That year, he embarked on another campaign, this time against the Kickapoo based across the Rio Grande in Mexico. Company I and McLaughlen again joined Mackenzie in the field for his attack into Coahuila, Mexico on 18 May 1873. On 27 June 1874, more than 200 Comanche warriors attacked a group of buffalo hunters camped at Adobe Walls, beginning the Red River War. In response, Augur ordered Mackenzie and the 4th Cavalry back to Fort Concho in July. When the US Army asked for permission to follow the Comanche and their allies onto reservations, the Secretary of War granted it. By August, General Philip H. Sheridan, commanding the Military Division of the Missouri, ordered five expeditionary forces of more than 3,000 soldiers into the South Plains. The southern force, under Mackenzie, left Fort Concho on 23 August 1874 with eight companies of the 4th Cavalry, four of the 10th Infantry, and one from the 11th Infantry. Over the course of the war, Mackenzie chased the Comanche until he found their base of operations in the Palo Duro Canyon and
caption: Historical marker detailing the service life of Fort Concho
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